What is recorded here

Lissanover is a vanished Cavan castle whose narrow rectangular shadow still lies buried beneath grass and memory. It belonged to Magaurans, then O’Reilly families, and later John Blatcheford, but by 1909 most of its walls had been removed, leaving only a confused tangle of banks and one tree-choked masonry block. The place resists easy description because it has been half-erased, yet that erasure is what makes it striking: a castle no longer complete, but still present in the shape of the land and the names that kept returning to it.

Depicted as a narrow rectangular building (dims c. 30m NE-SW; c. 5m NW-SE) with a projection (dims c. 10m NW-SE; c. 10m NE-SW) towards the SW end of the NW side on the 1835 ed. of the OS 6-inch map. A tower at Lissanover is marked on a 17th century baronial map. Originally owned by Magaurans, it had passed to Hugh McCahir O’reilly c. 1600, and at the Plantation it was granted with 300 acres to Bryan McShane O’Reilly. In 1664 it was owned by John Blatcheford. Davies (1947a, 95), who researched the history, claimed that the ruins were largely removed in 1909 leaving a somewhat confused complex of grass-covered banks. Today the only standing portion is a block of masonry at the NE angle which is surmounted by a tree, but the castle was probably incorporated in the rectangular projection depicted on the 1835 map. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cavan' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1995). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of revision: 7 April, 2016

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